logo
Wrong email address or username
Wrong email address or username
Incorrect verification code
The Ghost Road - Pat Barker
The Ghost Road
by: (author)
4.13 120
Winner of Great Britain's highest literary award, the Booker Prize, The Ghost Road is the culminating masterpiece of Pat Barker's towering World War I fiction trilogy. The time of the novel is the closing months of the most senselessly savage of modern conflicts. In France, millions of men... show more
Winner of Great Britain's highest literary award, the Booker Prize, The Ghost Road is the culminating masterpiece of Pat Barker's towering World War I fiction trilogy. The time of the novel is the closing months of the most senselessly savage of modern conflicts. In France, millions of men engaged in brutal trench warfare are all "ghosts in the making." In England, psychologist William Rivers, with severe pangs of conscience, treats the mental casualties of the war to make them whole enough to fight again. One of these, Billy Prior, risen to the officer class from the working class, both corageous and sardonic, decides to return to France with his fellow officer, poet Wilfred Owen, to fight a war he no longer believes in. Meanwhile, Rivers, enfevered by influenza, returns in memory to his experience studying a South Pacific tribe whose ethos amounted to a culture of death. Across the gulf between his society and theirs, Rivers begins to form connections that cast new light on his--and our--understanding of war. Combining poetic intensity with gritty realism, blending biting humor with tragic drama, moving toward a denouement as inevitable as it is devastating, The Ghost Road both encapsulates history and transcends it. It is a modern masterpiece.
show less
Format: paperback
ISBN: 9780452276727 (0452276721)
Publisher: A William Abrahams Book/Plume
Pages no: 288
Edition language: English
Series: Regeneration (#3)
Bookstores:
Community Reviews
meganbaxter
meganbaxter rated it
What becomes of us when all we know is death and killing, and that is taken away?If that is the question being asked, the answer is not forthcoming. The book ends just before the war does, so we never get to see how any surviving characters would reintegrate into civilian life. From their worries, t...
Ko
Ko rated it
re-read (audiobook)
lizpatanders
lizpatanders rated it
Overall this was an enjoyable book, although at times the characters got confusing. I thought it was interesting that it was written from the male perspective by a female author, and I really enjoyed the sections that gave background on the characters before the war. I read this for a class and wi...
Other editions (24)
Books by Pat Barker
On shelves
Share this Book
Need help?